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dancing with architecture: Fort Worth, Texas

by
bubba of the bubbles (noreply@blogger.com)
—
last modified
Jul 11, 2016

The bride and I were able to spend about 24 hours in Fort Worth to partake of the local museums with an eye toward Modernism. And Fort Worth has its share of Modern marvels from Louis Khan to Tadao Ando to Philip Johnson to Renzo Piano.

Besides outright Modernism the town is crazy for Art Deco and Zigzag Moderne including a number of neo-Deco structures.

Across from the rear of and offset from Khan's building is a sympathetic addition to the Kimbell by Renzo Piano (2013). Piano worked in Khan's office, and his addition mirrors and touchstones Khan's Kimble while at the same time modernizing it.

Back across the street (passing a teenager with an AR-15 slung over his shoulder in the intersection), we checked out the Tadao Ando-designed Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2002; Tadao was inspired to enter architecture after seeing Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel. It's a sedate building from the outside that reveals its creativity on the inside. It also touches on elements from Khan's work across the street.

Another Brutalist park in town is Heritage Park (1976) designed by Lawrence Halprin (if you think about it, Fort Worth is about overcoming nature; therefore, perhaps that explains their affinity for uber controlled natural environments). Halprin studied under Gropius and Breuer and Philip Johnson and I.M. Pei. The park was considered endangered because it had been closed for so long, but it is thankfully fixin' to get restored.